| Motif | Name | Description |
| a17 | The Sun’s relax at the midday | After passing half of the its way across the sky (in the day time) or in the underworld (in the night time), the Sun stops to have a rest |
| a18 | The Sun boat | During the day and/or the night (in the underworld, beyond the horizon etc.) the Sun and/or the Moon regularly travel in a boat. |
| a24a | The first day or night: transformed into spirits | At the moment when the first day or the first night come, (some) people turn into supernatural beings |
| a31 | The incestuous Moon | As a result of some intimate contacts and/or love affair, the Moon acquires its present appearance (often, the stains on his face) and/or ascends to the sky |
| a35 | Spots on the lunar disc | Dark spots on the lunar disc are dirt, blood, paint, traces of beating, burning, scratching, etc. on the Moon person's body or face (Kiliwa: spots on the Sun) and do not form any particular figure |
| a5 | The Sun and the Moon are males | The Moon is male, the Sun is also male or (much more rare) asexual |
| b12 | Rivers and snakes | The river bed follows the way of a snake, fish, dragon or crab; pieces of the snake’s body turn into rivers; a river is a snake |
| b17 | Night in container | Darkness is a particular object that can be carried (usually brought from its original owner in a container) |
| b1g | The transformers: four brothers | Four travelling brothers transform the world, annihilating monsters, changig the habits and appearance of different creatures and acquiring valuables (water, fire, cultivated plants and the like). Usually one of them is the main actor, and they often have one name for all the four |
| b2a | The female earth | The earth is a female person (alone or together with a male person); she is female being or associated with a woman |
| b3a | Primeval waters | Water is the original element, the dry earth appears later |
| b3b | Earth grows big | Original earth was small and later increased in size or the fertile soil grew from a small amount of original substance |
| b54 | Chips turn into fish | Chips of wood, branches or pieces of bark thrown or fallen into the water turn into fish and/or aquatic animals |
| b55 | Leaves are fish | Fish grows on branches of a tree or leaves of a tree turn into fish |
| b9 | Water in the tree trunk | There is enormous amount of water inside a trunk of a tree or a tree turns into water |
| c10 | The flood: the wet tails | During the flood birds or animals escape to some place (mountain, tree, boat, sky). Tips of their tails or other body parts get covered with water or foam and acquire their present color and form |
| c14 | Monsters destroy people | During or before the world catastrophe (deluge, darkness) wild beasts and monsters attack and destroy people |
| c2 | Deluge and conflagration combined | Inhabitans of the Middle World are (partly) destroyed (or will be destoyed) once by fire or draught, another time by a flood or the world is destroyed with a flood of fire or boiling water |
| c4 | The flood: fruits fall from a tree | During the flood or in the beginning of times fruits, seeds or other objects are dropped into water one by one, usually by a person who has climbed a tree. As far as the objects fall, water recedes and the dry land appears |
| c4a | The flood: survival in a tree | During the flood some persons survive in a tree |
| c5a | Bird-scouts | Birds or humans later changed to birds are sent to explore the earth (is it dry, are any survivals, to investigate why smoke rises to the sky, etc.) or to bring some soil to make the land that would be good for living |
| c7 | The flood: breaking the dam | In the beginning of times or after the flood a dam of earth, person or creature does not let water to recede. The dam is broken or opened, waters withdraw |
| d13g | Meet seen on teeth | When person laughs, people see his or her monstrous mouth (many teeth, human meat on teeth). They kill the monster or escape from it |
| d13i1 | Showing his teeth, person betrays himself | Person’s (demonic) nature becomes clear when he or she laughs and shows his or her teeth |
| f1 | First woman is a transformed man | Woman, female supernatural or animal females are created by changing the sex of a man (or male animals) |
| f26 | Origin of menses: sacred objects lost | The transition of sacred sound instruments (bull-roarers, big trumpets, etc.) from women to men is connected with beginning of menses among the women |
| f27 | Girls and the water spirits | For girls and young women it is dangerous to come near water. Water creatures swallow them or drag away; a girl can die or become pregnant from a spirit; she can trigger a flood (rare: other cataclysm). Water spirits can come themselves to a girl who has her periods |
| f34b | The paramour is not a human being | A girl (a woman, a group of women) intentionally takes a penis-being, a snake, an eel, a lizard, a worm, a big water animal or water monster or a big terrestrial mammal for paramour. People kill or maim the paramour, the woman and/or her progeny or she is transformed herself into an animal. She is blamed for her behavior |
| f38 | Women and sacred knowledge | Women were possessors of the sacred knowledge, sanctuaries or ritual objects which are now taboo for them or they made attempts to acquire such a knowledge or objects |
| f40b | A man in a village of women | A man gets into the village of women. Usually he has to satisfy every woman against his will or every woman claims him for herself |
| f45 | The Amazons | There are (or were) women who live apart from men in their own village or villages |
| f51 | The clandestine lover | Person who conceals his or her identity comes to his or her lover (at night). Next time, the lover puts a mark on the stranger's face, body or clothes doing this intentionally (to recognize him or her) or by chance (that leads to the identification) |
| f84 | Prolonged celibacy imitated | Person has sex with the wife of his host or brother. Trying to conceal his deed, he puts ashes or juice of a fruit on his glans that has to prove his long celibacy |
| g10 | The hanging tree | A tree which trunk is cut through do not fall because it is hold from above |
| g11 | Squirrel the woodcutter | A squirrel plays crucial role in felling the gigantic tree |
| g28 | The fish tree | Tree contains fish in its trunk |
| g8 | Restored tree | A deep notch in the tree (or in the sky support) is magically restored as soon as persons or creatures who cut or gnaw it stop working |
| g8c | Cutting tree to get valuables | (Animal-)people try to fell a tree that contains water and fish or has cultivated plants on its branches. The notch disappears and the tree becomes intact |
| g8f | Chips destroyed | A deep notch in the tree is magically restored when persons or creatures who cut it go away to take a rest. They get to fell the tree after they begin to burn the cut off chips or to carry them far way |
| h11 | The call of God | People become mortal because they do not hear or answer a call of a being who promises them immortality (or do not pronounce his name) or answer a call (pronouns the name) of a being who brings death |
| h18 | Hoarded game released | Game animals were concentrated in one single place. Certain person lets them disperse in the world |
| h1e | The first dead opens the road | After the first death the road to the realm of death remains open; certain person makes a road to the realm of death; the first person who had died becomes the ruler of the guard of the realm of death |
| h20 | Fish disperse in the world | All the fish or (rare) shellfish) was concentrated in one place. Certain person lets it lose or puts it into the rivers or sea |
| h20a | Mistress of fish loses it | A woman (a girl, several women) keeps all the fish for herself. Man comes and lets fish escape into rivers or sea. |
| h24 | Container opened too early | Container with valuables or with dangerous creatures is opened (before time). Its content goes out of control or disappear |
| h4 | The shed skin | Those who change their skin become young again |
| h5 | People and snakes | Reptiles or invertebrates possess the medicine of immortality; are contrasted with men as immortal with mortals and/or are responsible for originating of death; or a snake's bite inflicts the first death |
| i14 | No-anus people | Person or creature has no anus opening |
| i27 | Chthonic canine | A dog is the lord, guard or guide of/to the land of the dead; or dogs live on the way to the land of the dead |
| i28 | Animals in the underworld | Game animals live inside a mountain, in a cave or in the underworld where they often look like humans and have a master |
| i37g | Fungi are steps, platforms, obstacles | Tree fungi are steps, small platforms, umbrellas, obstacles that make moving easier or more difficult, provide a shelter or cover |
| j1 | The vengeful heroes | Persons avenge the death of their father, mother or other relatives who are one (rare two) generations older than they |
| j15 | Woman gets to dangerous creatures | Walking in search of her husband, boyfriend, kinsmen, shelter woman or girl gets to the house of dangerous creatures where she is injured or killed |
| j21 | Birth from eggs | Gods, first people or founders of the royal lineages are born from eggs |
| j22d | Two animals from one cut in two | Two halves of one animal or person which was cut in two turn into two animals of different species or into foreigners |
| j28a | Truth about father | Hero asks how one of his parents died and receives a series of false answers. Usually he successively exposes himself to the same dangers, survives and thus demonstrates that truth is still concealed from him |
| j31 | Father’s weapon | A young hero obtains and uses weapons or other powerful objects which belonged to his murdered father |
| j4 | Revenge for the death of the male relatives | Heroes avenge the murder or captivity of the male relatives: (grand)father, uncles, or the elder relatives in general, the loss of the males being the most traumatic |
| j4a | Revenge for the death of the mother | A woman is murdered. Her son or children (rare: grandchildren, nephews) revenge for her death |
| j50 | An attempt to revive the victim | Twin heroes' parent dies or is killed, an attempt to revive him or her fails |
| j51 | One piece is missing | Person or animal is eaten up or destroyed otherwise. His bones are put together and he or it is revived. Because one bone was broken, swallowed or lost (or a drop of blood, a small piece of flesh lost), the person or animal cannot be revived or being revived misses some part of his or its body |
| j51b | One piece is missing: the revived Moon | The Moon is eaten or died and disintegrated. He is revived by a small piece (a bone) is missing. From this peculiarities of the Moon or of human anatomy |
| j58 | The arrow ladder | Persons shoot arrows (darts) which hit each other’s end forming a chain (rope, ladder). Persons climb by this chain to the sky or (rare) across an obstacle |
| j59 | Following arrow to get to the sky | To climb to the sky, person must first to shoot an arrow that reaches the sky and sticks to it |
| j64 | Person moves on clouds of smoke | Not being burned in a fire, person ascends to the sky or gets across a river on clouds of smoke |
| k55 | Chastity rewarded | A powerful supernatural wants to check if his guest made love with his wife or daughter. The person is impotent or (successfully pretends to be) chaste and is rewarded or at least gets no harm. Usually the same episodes repeats with another person who is dissolute or unable to control himself. This person is punished |
| l13 | The reared up monster | A small creature is reared up by people. When it is grown up, it becomes harmful and dangerous |
| l14 | Reared up serpent | A small creature (often a worm or a reptile) is brought home and reared up or it becomes to live by itself in an artificial body of water. When big, it goes out of human control or becomes something huge and/or dangerous. Cf. motif L13A (The reared up monster attacks people) |
| l22 | The sound sleep | After breaking some taboo, coming across a strange object or person, people fall asleep. They do not feel when at night spirits come and injure or kill them |
| l22a | People become blind | After breaking some taboo, coming across a strange object or person, people fall asleep and awake blind |
| l24 | Monsters suffocated | Demons (or one of them) attack people and return to their den (usually a cave or tree hollow). People make suffocating fire around the den killing most or all of the demons |
| l25 | Demonic girl sucks brains | People adopt a demonic child, girl or woman but discover that this being kills people (in particular babies left in its charge) sucking out their brains or taking out their eyes |
| l38 | Demon’s trap | A demon puts a trap to catch people, hero gets into it |
| l42 | Hero carried to ogre’s home | An ogre or ogress catches a person and brings him to his or her home where he or she plans to cook and eat him. The hero escapes |
| l48 | Demons devour their comrades | A man kills (usually in a tree, on a rock, at the edge of a well, of a precipice) and/or throws down one of his enemies. The other enemies do not recognize their comrade and think that their prey is falling down |
| l70 | Fruit falls and kills | Person or animal is killed or injured with a heavy object dropped from a tree (or rock, etc.). The person or the animal knows that the objects will fall but has falls ideas about its character and weight |
| l77 | Girl seen as a fruit eaten up | Person sees or smells people as delicious objects and devours them |
| m11 | The unclean food | Person feeds others a food that is extracted from his, hers or somebody else’ body or is polluted by body extractions not informing about the source of the food |
| m18 | Stolen arrows and hooks | Person transforms himself into an object of hunting or fishing, provokes hunters of fishermen to catch or shoot him and carries way the tools that they use (arrows, darts, harpoons, hooks, baits). Or he fishes by turning himself into a hook. Or he is caught but escapes turning back into a person |
| m18b | Getting fishing hook or harpoon | Person turns into a fish to steal fishing hook or harpoon or he turns into fishing hook to catch a fish |
| m8 | Breaking the obstacle | Non-human persons work hard to destroy a strong and durable obstacle that blocks access to some place or object |